haitiwest

I usually send this newsletter out in February each year, but this year it has taken me a bit longer to manage to get it done. My apologies for the delay, but I am excited to share so much good news with all of you!! Please click the link below to open the newsletter. I also provide a jpeg attachment of it below too.

Newsletter April 2019

Please be praying for us as we return to Haiti next week. We begin hosting our first team of the busy team season starting May 4th, and we pretty much have back to back teams coming until the middle of August. We are super excited about serving with all of the teams that have made plans to come and we will be praying for everyone as they plan and prepare!!

Thank you for taking the time to read our Newsletter!

Blessings!

Tony & Mickie

Today I want to share with you a story. Some of you may already know this story, but other do not. It’s Betsy’s story, but it is also the story of countless other children in Haiti who have suffered the nightmare of malnutrition.

Betsy was our first experience with infant malnutrition about six years ago. God used Betsy to set us on a pathway to eventually opening our own malnutrition center, Pen Lavi. When Betsy came to us, she was six months old and weighed six pounds. She had become very sick, stopped eating, and was wasting away. Her family didn’t know what to do for her, so they brought her to us for help. At the time, we had no idea of what to do, so we reached out for help through the Expat Community on Facebook. There is a medical page there that we often use to reach out for help from medical professionals across the country. Someone immediately suggested we contact Brittany Pierre who was running a malnutrition center down in Bel Anse (about 6 hours from us). I wrote to Brittany and she was flying in from the US and said we could meet her at the airport and she would take Betsy and her mom to her place for care. Over the next few weeks, Betsy had to go into the hospital multiple times as her fragile little body fought hard to stay alive. After multiple miracles, she made it. Today Betsy is a happy, thriving young girl who loves to help others and loves Jesus more than life itself.

After Brittany took Betsy in, other families began to bring their malnourished babies to us for help. It seemed to be a constant, endless flow of desperate mamas trying to find a way to help their babies survive. We knew we could not continue to take these babies six hours away from their families. We found another malnutrition center that was closer, but it was still 3 hours away. As God continued to grow our understanding of malnutrition, He also grew our desire to open a center of our own that could meet the needs of these families closer to where they live. At the time, Rachel Charpie was working as a two-year intern at our children’s home. I had done some research and was putting together some forms and spreadsheets of the patients we had already had, but I knew that this was more than I could take on myself. I asked Rachel if she might be interested in taking on the challenge. She immediately said YES! God had already begun preparing her heart for the next step He wanted to take with her in her Haiti journey. Rachel had started leading a boy’s Bible study in our house on Saturdays. She practiced her diagnostic skills on them by going through all the tests and measurements required to diagnose someone with malnutrition. Most of the boys in the group were clinically malnourished. She started them on a nutritional regime that would get them to their optimal weight and size and within months, they were all released from the program.

In the meantime, Rachel started seeing more and more patients in our clinic though her out-patient malnutrition program, but those who needed more intensive care were still having to go to a clinic 3 hours away. We began to pray for God to provide a place where we could offer inpatient care so that we wouldn’t have to send them so far away. God answered our prayers in every detail when He led us to the place where we would open Pen Lavi (Bread of Life) Malnutrition recovery center.

Since the first day we opened the center, Rachel and her amazing staff have treated over 80 children who were severely malnourished. Not all have survived, but those that did not just came to us at a point when it was too late to survive or they had other medical problems that complicated it too much. These children that are taken in at Pen Lavi are given love and nurturing and nutrition that turns their little bodies and spirits from sickly and scared to healthy and happy just like Betsy. Their mamas are encouraged to stay with them there at the center so that they can not only give their child love and nurturing, but also learn about their child’s nutrition and health needs.

You see, malnutrition doesn’t necessarily mean “starving”; it more often means “bad nutrition.” It means that the child may have been eating, but he or she was only eating rice or bread and wasn’t getting a proper diet to provide the nutrients the body needs to grow and stay healthy. Complications develop in the body that put the child on a downward spiral to death. Organs start to shut down, and the child develops a syndrome called Kwashiokor that can quickly become lethal. We have treated many children with this problem over the last year in our center.

The miracles we see God perform in our midst daily at Pen Lavi are astounding. However, because the center doesn’t have a source of creating income to pay the medical staff and provide the medicines, medical care, and food the children need to recover, we have to raise those funds. We would like for Rachel to be able to focus completely on running the center without having to worry about whether or not the center can continue to be open because of budget issues. This is why we have decided to have an annual fundraiser called Food for Life where we raise all of her budget for the year and she and her staff can continue to provide the care all of these children need to survive like Betsy has. Our prayer is for every child that enters our doors to receive the absolute best possible care we can give them.

We would like for you to pray about helping us do that. Please join us at the Food for Life fundraiser dinner on May 2nd, 2019 buy purchasing a ticket for $45 and/or participating in our silent auction. The auction will be live at the event and online as well. Bidding will actually start online on April 25th. You can go to the But God Ministries Facebook page to learn more about the event or go to this link:  Food for Life fundraising event Your support truly provides Food for Life! Thank you, and God Bless!!

As I sit here still answering messages that have come to me over the last 24 hours, my heart is hopeful as many, many people are joining us in prayer for Haiti. Monday night around midnight, when I went to bed, I checked my phone to make sure it was not on silent in case Tony called and then put it on the night stand to go to sleep. I checked it occasionally throughout the night for updates on what was going on in Haiti, and then around 5:00 am, my phone began to “ding” over and over….and over again. Between text messages and inbox messages, I had over 63 messages from people expressing concern. As more and more people started seeing people, groups, and organizations in Haiti post about the political demonstrations going on over there, I found myself spending the whole morning answering questions about our perspective on the situation. One of my missionary friends over there was sending me pictures of things she had seen or others had seen going on in the city, and I realized that this is not just a political situation, it’s spiritual. Haiti needs prayer. Right now, the forces that are wreaking havoc are powered by the enemy. Their intentions are evil. They are using the oppression and desperate condition of the masses to bring about political upheaval that will only benefit the wealthy and once again ignore those in need. But God….

But our God is more powerful. He loves Haiti, and He loves the ones who are being daily oppressed and their condition ignored. This is why He called us there, to minister to the oppressed. And now He is calling us all to prayer. He is more powerful than the one making a mess of things over there, and we CLAIM Haiti, by the power of God, for CHRIST! He WILL move, and He WILL establish peace again there soon so that we can continue to serve Him by helping the people of our village.

God’s word is FILLED with not suggestions but commands to minister to those in need. Look for yourself. Do a search in the Word about poverty and helping others. Over the last two days I have found myself reading Psalms and Proverbs, asking God to use His word to embolden my spirit. He has done that. Proverbs 31: 8-9 says, “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” God loves them and calls us to serve Him in ministry to them. The poor in Haiti deserve a chance, and God’s plan for them has not changed. In our village, people don’t seek luxury, but they do want to be able to send their kids to school, get dependable medical care, find ways to establish their own businesses, grow and harvest their fields for food and market, worship together in peace, and move about the country easily and affordably as they go about their daily lives. BGM as well as many of you have partnered with them over the years to help them do just this. Over the last 7 years, the improvements we have seen happen in the lives of people in our village are enormous! Thousands of people have come to our village to serve with us and love on our people. This WILL NOT CHANGE. As it is God’s will, it will continue! As David cried in Psalm 35:10,  I cry out too: “My whole being will exclaim, ‘Who is like you, Lord? You rescue the poor from those too strong for them, the poor and needy from those who rob them.'” When I read Psalm 113:5-8, “Who is like the Lord our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth? He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes, with the princes of his people” the words that stuck out to me were ASH HEAP. Here I picture the piles of smoldering ash in the streets of Haiti after the burning tires have lost their flames and the people have returned to their lives. God reminds me, “I am on the throne, I see the pain, and I WILL MOVE.” The flames will smolder out, and the needy will be lifted up and seated “with the princes of his people.”

I needed this so, so much. My heart has been breaking and my spirit in panic as I envisioned once again the poor suffering because of the injustices of others as hundreds of Americans fear coming to the beautiful country where we serve. I  just don’t want to see that happen again. I want to see people joining us in ministry to the ones we have grown to love so much. I have thought about LyniaNara needing medical care, and Mr. Saintus and Mdm Dorsainvil needing their blood pressure medicine. It hurts my heart to know Mr. Milfort can’t make his almost daily hike from Ganthier to Hope Center to visit with us. I cry as I envision all of the children in our village unable to attend school, growing more and more hungry because the food trucks are unable to pass through barricades in the city to deliver food.  I have found myself on my knees, just crying uncontrollable tears to God. ….then it hit me!

God said, “This is where I want you right now.” He reminded me of Psalm 146:5-9 where He says, “Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God. He is the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them—he remains faithful forever. He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free, the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.” God is watching over us. He is the maker of heaven, earth, sea….and Haiti. Haiti is HIS. She is not mine, or yours, or anyone else’s. She belongs to God, and He wants us to BOW DOWN and pray for the ways of the wicked to be “frustrated.” He will protect the foreigners and sustain those we serve. It’s happening right now. He WILL lift Haiti up again. We WILL serve normally there again, and soon. This confusion is only for a short season as He stirs things up and moves people to once again turn to Him.

So now for the elephant in the room. Many people have called and written to me as well as the BGM office and asked, “What do we do now? Do we continue making plans to come to Haiti to serve?” The answer is OF COURSE, WE DO!! The called of God don’t let the wickedness of the enemy hijack God’s plan and rob those to whom we minister. We don’t allow the enemy to manifest fear in our hearts and chase us away from our call. We are cautious and practical, of course, as we believe God would have us be, but we do not, WILL NOT, abandon the call. God is clearly not finished with the work He called us to. The many thousands of other believers who join together as the body of Christ to minister to those in need in Haiti are STILL CALLED. This time of upheaval is a call to prayer, to REAL faith in God’s power to move among the people of Haiti as they once again turn to Him and rise out of the grip of the enemy. Before we know it, the streets are going to be open again, businesses are going the be thriving again, schools are going to be teaching again, and WE – the Body of Christ – are going to get up off our knees refreshed and renewed and ready to be His hands and feet to this beautiful nation to continue the work He called us to.

Anyone who has ever lived in Haiti knows how one week you can be lifting your eyes up to a beautiful sky filled with a fresh, ocean breeze rustling the palm fonds, and the next week the air can be filled with the smoke of burning tires.  It’s a third world country. Oppressed people are easily influenced and enflamed by corruption. To serve full-time in a country like this, one must build relationships with trusted people who also have influence around the country, who will spring into action when things get rough. One must utilize multiple sources to be aware of conditions all throughout the country. One must have plans in place for keeping people safe while they serve as well as give safe evacuation in cases of emergency.  God has blessed But God Ministries with all of these things. We will not allow a group to come into the country if we do not feel it is safe to travel to our village. We will be in communication with every group that has booked a week on the calendar as that week approaches and we continue making plans for ministry.  As long as we can safely move these groups in and out, and as long as our Haitian staff can help us prepare, we will do so. We keep our eyes set on God and His plan for His ministry in Haiti. Can unpredictable events occur that are out of our control? Of course they can. Life is unpredictable. But we must remember that panic is not of God. Wisdom is. The plan of God is still at work and will continue on in His power, protection, and provision, and we will rest and trust in His will.

Please join us in this call to prayer, and please continue making your plans. All of this uprising and chaos will be over soon, and life in Haiti will be no different than it was a few weeks ago when we were busy teaching ESL to village kids, educating expectant mothers, building houses, serving lunch to school kids, and seeing patients in medical clinic. Our prayer is that there will be one big difference though. Our prayer is that Haiti will have a renewed sense of the power of God and a new commitment to His will in their lives and the future of their nation.

Many, many people have asked for the story of our sweet renal failure patient, LyniaNara. If you want to know her story, sit back and have a read. So here goes…

When I met her, she was just another bright and energetic 5th grader at one of our sponsor schools. She loved to laugh and jump rope, sing with her friends and EAT! You couldn’t tell it from her tiny frame, but boy did she love to eat! She was mischievous and loved to play pranks too. She was just a normal girl, living a simple life in a tiny village in Haiti. Her friends called her “Lynia,” but I always loved calling her by her full name “LyniaNara” because it had a certain ring to it that reminded me of a song. That’s what LyniaNara is…a happy song. Her joy is contagious…

She moved on to sixth grade, and she and her friends enjoyed being the “seniors” at the primary school. They giggled at the boys, protected the kindergartners, and bossed around the fourth and fifth grade girls because, well, they could! This was their last year at “the orange” school, and soon she and her friends would move up to the BGM High School, and they would switch to the more prestigious blue uniforms.

LyniaNara moved on up to seventh grade, but her spark had begun to fade. She was always very tired and wanted to sleep instead of go to school. She cried because she wanted to go, but she didn’t feel good when she was there. She didn’t feel good no matter where she was. Her back hurt all the time, and she did not have an appetite. Food didn’t taste good to her for some reason. She tried to feel normal. She didn’t know what was wrong with her body. Her smile grew weak. It was as if her dark, sunken eyes were about to lure her into a deep tunnel. She was exhausted. Her parents knew she was not the energetic child she was so supposed to be, so they took her to the doctor.

LyniaNara’s parents took her to see a doctor who ran a series of tests on her then referred her to a nephrologist. The nephrologist admitted her to the hospital and had more tests run. By the time they figured out that LyniaNara was in the advanced stages of kidney failure, her parents had spent almost $2000 US. They had borrowed from friends in their church and sold livestock to pay the hospital bills, but at this point they were tapped out. The doctor explained what it would take to keep her alive, and it sounded to them like an impossible future. Someone suggested they go to Hope Center and talk to us here about the situation. If BGM couldn’t help, they had already prepared themselves to accept the fact that, without a miracle, their baby girl was going to die. But God….

After talking with LyniaNara’s family about the situation, we began to pray that God would show us what to do. We consulted with But God Ministries CEO, Stan Buckley, and he said, “We can’t put a price on a 13 year old girl. We will ask God to provide and we will do what we can do to help her live.”  We had no idea where to begin. We reached out for advice on the Haiti Medical Facebook page and a doctor suggested that if our ultimate goal was kidney transplant, we should take LyniaNara to see a doctor in Haiti that had done several successful kidney transplants. We did just that, and held onto the hope that one day LyniaNara would return to a somewhat normal life. We made our first visit to  Hospital OFATMA in May.

After talking to the doctor, a plan was made to try to manage her kidney disease with peritoneal dialysis because she could do this procedure at home and it would not be as expensive. Once she got into a routine with the dialysis, we could start testing family members for a tissue match and make plans for a kidney transplant. We scheduled the surgery for the port to be inserted and then we would proceed with learning to do the peritoneal dialysis. She was nervous but hopeful that this procedure would put her on a path towards a normal life. She was beginning to realize, however, that her idea of “normal” was going to be far from what she had always known. None of the other girls she knew would go to school every day with a tube in their stomach. None of the other girls would have to attach a bag of fluid to that tube and fill their belly every morning and night for the rest of their lives. None of the other girls had to swear off of salt, bananas, potatoes, avocados, or CHOCOLATE! She was only 13 and she LOVED to eat! Now she was having to accept that most of the foods she loved were poisonous to her body! It was a lot to think about. It was more than she was ready to face.

Since inserting the peritoneal catheter, LyniaNara began to get more and more sick. Her blood pressure was high and difficult to manage, possibly because she would often cheat on her diet. She would go on hunger strikes until her mother would give in and give her food with salt because, after all, Mom couldn’t sit there and watch her child starve herself to death! She needed to eat, and neither of them understood …so she would feed her the only food she knew how to make…normal food…with salt. What she didn’t realize, however, is that the salt that made this food taste so good to her baby girl was poisoning her blood and causing her blood pressure to rise dangerously high, her body would swell up like a balloon, and she would become dangerously weak.

Between the months of May through September, LyniaNara spent most of the time in and out of the hospital fighting for her life. She spent many nights in the emergency room, and even more nights in a large room with 20 hospital beds filled with other sick people. Family members would take turns sitting with their loved ones, sharing stories with one another, going out to get food for their loved ones because the hospital didn’t provide food that they could eat. They would loan one another money to get medicines and tests that their doctors called for. Every week we would reload LyniaNara’s envelope with money, and as the money was spent, receipts took its place. LyniaNara’s mother and sister took turns caring for her, and I would run back and forth from the grocery store to the house and back to the hospital with food made with no salt because the family had no idea how to make food she could eat. We were all worn slam out. I sat with LyniaNara many times all day long so her mom and sister could get a break. One time, as we sat there trying to find things to talk about, a family three beds down began screaming and crying as the staff wheeled their loved one out to take him to the morgue. LyniaNara knew that this young man who had just died was fighting the same kidney disease she was fighting, only he had lost his battle. Fear filled her eyes as they passed by her bed. She watched in horror as the ghostly shape of the man’s figure draped in a white sheet brought chills to her spine and melted to despair. She slowly turned her face towards mine, looked straight into my eyes, then closed hers. A tear pressed its way out of the corner and created a dark, fluid path down her soft, mahogany cheek. My heart sank.

LyniaNara was finally moved to a patient holding room the hospital containing 20 beds,  Tony and I were preparing to go to the states, so I went over instructions with the family, explaining when to take each medication, how to measure her water intake, how to check her blood pressure, and who to call on for help while we were gone. We would be gone for three weeks, and the thought of her sinking down again and becoming septic made my heart tremble and my blood boil.

Sure enough, we returned to Haiti, and LyniaNara was septic again.  When I went to visit her in the hospitial, I was expecting to find her recovering, but instead she was deathly ill. This was the third time she had become severely septic since she began her peritoneal dialysis. Every treatment she had taken was given at the hospital, so I was very confused as to why she kept getting septic. Come to find out, they were doing the treatments without gloves! The doctor also told me that while we were gone, they had decided to switch her to hemodialysis because she was not responding well to the peritoneal. Her hemoglobin had dropped to 2.5 and she was near death.  The hospital explained that they had been out of dialysis supplies for over a week, so she had not received treatment as she should. The nurse pulled me to the side and said, “Ou bezwen pran li lot lopital paske l’ap mouri isit la.” (You need to take her to another hospital because she is going to die here.) I went into panic mode. My hands trembled as I frantically searched for the number to an ambulance service to come get her. I managed to get into contact with HERO Rescue service and they agreed to come get her. They advised me to take care of any outstanding balances at the hospital before they arrived because we urgently needed to get her out of there.

I briskly made my way to the administrative office, weaving through the patients crowding the hallway in wheelchairs, wrapped in blood stained bandages. There were people sleeping on benches all along the walls, desperate and dying patients moaning and yelling for help from rooms along the way. My blood pressure was rising by the second. When I finally reached the office, I was in tears. I sat before the emotionless administrator trying to explain in my best Creole that I needed to settle up LyniaNara’s bill because we were taking her to another hospital for dialysis. She slowly thumbed through her files, occasionally glancing up at the soap opera on the tv overhead,  then finally she began to name off all of the treatments LyniaNara had received. She scribbled a figure on the paper. As I leaned forward and stared at the number, my heart began to tremble. I closed my eyes to keep my composure. It was going to cost $700 to get LyniaNara out of the hospital. Tony just to happened to have given me $600 just in case I needed it when I left Hope Center that morning. I knew there were going to be other charges when we changed hospitals, so I was going to have to muster up some courage to dispute this bill. I tried with all of my strength to find the words to calmly negotiate a lower bill. The administrator finally agreed to let me pay $500. I took the papers from her, ran to cashier, counted out the bills being careful not to let anyone around me see how much money I had. While paying, the paramedics passed me with LyniaNara’s stretcher and I motioned to them where to go. The cashier gave me the blue discharge paper I needed to exit the building, and I ran to catch up with the stretcher that was turning into her room.

We made our way to the ambulance and lifted her in. I found myself praying out loud in Creole for God to spare her life and help us get to where we needed to go. She probably had minutes to live. My driver, Meresse, was waiting for us outside, so LyniaNara’s mother and sister and I jumped in and told him to follow the ambulance to Hospital L’Epoir. Traffic was horrific and Meresse tried desperately to keep up with the ambulance, but other vehicles were not letting him pass through. For a minute I thought we might die trying to get there.

When we finally arrived at the hospital, they had already unloaded LyniaNara and taken her to the ER. I knew I did not have the needed cash to pay for admission as well as the ambulance, so I explained to the driver the situation and he agreed to take a donation for gas in lieu of payment. “Thank you, God…” I whispered as I handed him 2500 gourdes which was about $40 at the time. After what seemed like an eternity and multiple confrontations with other patient family members who were afraid the “blan” was going to get special treatment, the doctor explained to us that she was going to have to go to another facility because there was no one at L’Espoir who could do the procedure. I called the ambulance to return to get us, they agreed, and within 30 minutes, we were loading LyniaNara back into the ambulance. When we arrived at the dialysis center, we discovered that we needed to get her to the second floor, and the elevator in the building was about the size of a laundry chute. The paramedics quickly switched to plan B, wrapped her in a sheet, and carried her up the stairs. The staff at the dialysis center immediately went to work getting LyniaNara hooked up to the machine. By this time, it was nearly 9:00 at night and we realized we had not eaten anything all day. I had two packs of crackers in my purse, so LyniaNara’s sister and mother and I shared them and prayed it would be enough to satisfy the hunger now that we had switched into waiting mode. The pediatric nephrologist who usually worked at L’Espoir had followed us to the dialysis center. I introduced myself and began to explain to her what all had happened. Come to find out, Dr. Exantus was the first doctor that LyniaNara’s parents had spoken to a year earlier. She was curious about why they had never brought her back to see her. I explained everything that had happened since their first visit and she was clearly very disappointed in their decision. At midnight, the dialysis was finished and we had to make a decision as to what to do next. The doctor said she needed to be transferred to a hospital for additional dialysis, treatment for sepsis, and she would need to be intubated. The ambulance returned for the third time to take her to Hospital Bernard Mevs. She was stable for now, but not out of the woods by a long shot.

Once we arrived at Bernard Mevs, the team transferred her to the pediatric ICU and prepared for intubation. However, her father suddenly decided that he did not want a tube to be put in his daughter. The hospital staff explained to me that she would certainly die within the hour if she did not get intubated and treatments begin. I pulled her parents aside and tried to explain. I begged them to make a wise decision. If their choice remained to not intubate, she would be dead by morning unless God intervened otherwise. They calmed down and agreed to the intubation. The hospital staff quickly got back to work on her. They were losing time and were concerned that they might lose LyniaNara as well.

As I sunk down upon the black-gray, mud and grease covered curb amongst all the other long, tired faces, I leaned my head back against the cold, cinderblock wall and began to pour over the events of the last 24 hours. I could not believe that this precious 13 year old girl was again fighting for her life for the fourth time in one year. I felt my chest tighten, my shoulders began to heave, and as I drew in a deep breath, the tears began to flow uncontrollably. My body curled forward as I placed my face in my hands and pretended to sleep like everyone else, but inside the dark womb I had made for myself, I was crying out to God for a miracle. At 5:00 in the morning, I felt a gentle hand upon my back and was startled upright to find a doctor with soft, apologetic eyes searching my face for permission to break the silence. It was the chief of pediatrics coming to let me know that LyniaNara had made it through the night and I should go home. Her family had left long before and decided to let me sleep. My driver was asleep in the truck outside the gate doing what he often finds himself doing…waiting for me to decide to leave. I tapped on his window, he bolted upright, and scrambled to lift his seat and roll down the window. We headed home towards the sunrise as vendors along the route swept their curbs and prepared their booths for the day’s market. I was beyond exhausted.

In the two weeks the followed, LyniaNara continued to improve. The hospital called saying it was time for LyniaNara to go home and she could return to the dialysis center for her treatments three times a week. As Meresse and I made our way through the maze of congested traffic through Port au Prince, I felt thankful that LyniaNara had made it through yet another nightmare of near-death trauma, but I also dreaded sitting down in another administrator’s office begging for grace on a hospital bill. Three hours later, we exited the hospital with LyniaNara in the back seat and a receipt for a $1500 hospital bill. I just kept praying to God to continue to provide. I reasoned that it was clear that God had rescued her from death over and over again, so I must continue to trust that the funds would continue to be there. I fought against worry in the back of my mind while clinging to the memory of the many  miracles experienced so far.

Knowing absolutely nothing about hemodialysis, I was a little confused when the doctor called us two weeks later explaining that her temporary port had come out for the second time and we needed to pay $300 to have it reinstalled. Her doctor said that she was in the hospital having a new port put in, but we would have to pay for it to get her out. She also explained that LyniaNara seriously needed to get her fistula installed because we could not just keep reinstalling this temporary port. I had no idea what a fistula was, but it didn’t sound easy or cheap. The doctor said she had heard that a surgical team was currently at a hospital not 3 miles from us and they “just so happened” to have an endovascular surgeon on the team whose specialty was installing fistulas! I quickly assured her we would send her the money for the port that day, hung up the phone, and grabbed the keys to the truck. I was going to that hospital to find this surgeon. Once I arrived at the hospital, I asked around until I found the unit where the visiting team was operating. The surgeon was in surgery, but they agreed to send him out as soon as he was finished. Two hours later, he came out of the double doors and greeted me with a smile. I explained the whole story to him, and he said to have LyniaNara at the hospital by 6 the next morning and he would do the surgery for free. ….for free!! Oh my gosh, Hallelujah! I resisted the urge to hug him since he didn’t know me from Adam.

The next morning, we arrived at the hospital early, and LyniaNara was the first patient on the surgical list. She received her fistula, entertained the whole surgical staff with her sweet smile, and we headed home that afternoon. Praise God for His provision and yet another miracle!!

Fast forward five months. LyniaNara has been going to the dialysis center three times a week now and getting stronger and stronger. She is using her fistula in dialysis, and it is holding up well. We still don’t know what the future holds, but we know God has a plan. We are hoping that her family will begin testing soon for a donor match and we can start the process of getting her on a list for transplant. The dialysis center has agreed to only charge $40 for each dialysis treatment, which is a huge discount, but since she has it 3 times a week, we are looking at about $500 a month for her dialysis, plus another $250 a month for transportation, and $100 a month for additional medicines. We have no idea how much her doctor is going to charge, as we have not received a bill from her yet. The dialysis center did say that if we could find someone in the states that would start sending them some of the supplies they use daily in their center, we could trade that out for treatments, so we are looking for donors now. We are also researching St. Jude to see if we can get her to the states for her kidney transplant once we find out if anyone in her family is a match.

Please join us as we pray for God to continue to guide us down the needed paths to get sweet LyniaNara back to a somewhat normal life. She yearns for friends and school and the brisk, sun-kissed air on her face as she walks through the village with other girls. If you know of anyone with access to dialysis supplies that might be willing to partner with her dialysis center, share her story and get them in touch with me. If you feel led to help contribute to her medical expenses, you can do so at http://www.butgodministries.com and earmark it for LyniaNara benevolence. If you have connections with anyone at St. Jude who could help guide us through the process of getting a foreign patient admitted, please forward them her story and get them in touch with me. I know that God has a plan for her, and He wants to use many, many people to come together to do a miracle. I don’t know yet who those people are, but God does, and I trust that He will call them to action as soon as I….hit…publish.

God bless you all. Thank you for reading LyniaNara’s story.

Our days here at Hope Center are filled with many ups and downs. We face huge disappointments, heart breaking situations, and glorious miracles. I love it when the day ends in a miracle like it did yesterday. Many of you know Kenken…..

His sponsor is Lori Kizziah from Pensacola. Lori and I (as well as many others) have been so concerned about Kenken over the last few years because he has been through so much pain and he often feels discouraged and beat down by people he trusts to take care of him. He comes from a village called Cha-cha near the mountain village of Bel Fontaine. His parents died about three years ago, and he went to live with his uncle. After a few months, his uncle left him and moved to Brazil. He was alone and scared but determined to find help. He made his way down the mountain to Galette Chambon all by himself. He was 12 years old. He found a family to live with, but they treated him like a slave. It’s a common form of child slavery in Haiti, particularly in the countryside. A child slave is called “restovek.”  He was forced to work for this family and was only allowed to wear tattered clothes and no shoes. He was always dirty and alone. He knew that this treatment was not right, so he came to Hope Center seeking help. At the time, a team from Pensacola was here, and that’s how he met Lori. God led Lori to be his sponsor and we got him in school.

 

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He also started coming to our church and he accepted Jesus as his savior. Things were looking up for Kenken! Once he started school, however, the family he was living with kicked him out. They didn’t like that he was not home in the mornings to work. Once again, he was alone on the dusty paths of the village, sleeping anywhere he could find shelter. Eventually, he found another family to live with, but every time Lori would send him gifts, the people in the family would steal them from him. They made him feel like he owed them the nice things he received from his sponsor. Yesterday, he came to us again completely beat down. Someone in the house took all of his belongings and burned them outside the house. He had nothing…no uniform, no back pack, no shoes, nothing more than the clothes on his back…and once again, no home. He said that the family had started making him sleep outside in the yard with the dogs. I was devastated. I just felt like we were at a complete dead end. We had asked people before if they could help him, and they either said no, or they agreed and abused him. We had talked to some Christian orphanages – because he is a TRUE orphan – but none of them could accept a child over the age of 12. I found myself crying out to God for help because I know He sees Kenken’s situation, and I know He can provide. My heart was so, so heavy. Meanwhile, Kenken just hung out in our yard, playing soccer with Bicly and Cade, enjoying a few laughs with photo filters….waiting…..

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About the same time, a local pastor came to see me to discuss plans for our upcoming party for the handicapped in our area. Next week’s team is making plans, and Pastor Wilfaite is planning on the Haiti end. He had brought in the ladies that will cook the food for the party. We sat and discussed the plans, and I agreed to show them a good location for cooking the food near the church. When we walked through the clinic gate, there sat Kenken on the bench by the clinic. God spoke to my heart and said, “Share his story with them.” So we went behind the clinic and looked at the space for cooking and they agreed that this was a good location. Then I told them about Kenken. Their faces showed disappointment, sadness, & compassion for this child who has known nothing but rejection in the last few years. Pastor said he knew of a woman who has a house near his, not far from the school Kenken attends. She is getting older and could really use someone there in the house with her particularly at night. She has an extra room, and she agreed to let Kenken live there. There is no furniture in the room, so we gave him a cot to sleep on until we can get him a bed. We agreed to find Kenken an additional sponsor so that we can use that money to help her buy food for him and take care of other needs he may have. We dug around in the things that teams have left here and found him some clothes. I looked in the uniform closet to see if his uniform for next year had been made yet so I could go ahead and give it to him. I found something better. I found a uniform with the name of a student who has left the program. The size is perfect for Kenken!

Last night, Kenken spent his first night with his new friend in a solid house with a concrete floor. He slept safely and soundly with a pillow under his head. He woke up this morning and prepared for school without skipping a beat. He had a good breakfast, ate lunch at school, and he knows he will eat dinner at his new home tonight. God has answered our prayers. He has seen Kenken’s pain and used Godly people in the village to reach out to him and help him. I will be posting him again on the website to find him an additional sponsor. I have no doubt that he will have one in no time. Isaiah 40:29-31 says, “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” God is giving strength to Kenken right now. I have no doubt that one day, Kenken will run and not grow weary and he will walk and not be faint. He has and will continue to overcome. Praise God!!! 

When Tony and I first moved to Haiti almost six years ago, we didn’t know a lick of Creole, and we only had one good friend we knew in Haiti and he was our translator, Vladimir. We jumped right into hosting teams and building the mission here with many visions in mind of what God was going to do through hundreds of people within these walls and for miles outside. It was exciting, but at times it was lonely too. We quickly realized the importance of getting away for a few minutes to just hold hands and walk and breathe in the mountain breeze that would clear our thoughts and refresh our spirits. We found a pathway that went up a hill behind our house that became our favorite walk. Hand-in-hand, we would set out to climb the hill and take it all in.

After several trips up the hill, a little boy started noticing our path, and he curiously began to follow us. He would approach us on his donkey, then he would jump off, tie up the donkey, and join us on our walk. He didn’t know our language, but his sweet smile spoke volumes. We immediately recognized that he was smart, loving, and eager to get to know the “blans” that had moved into his village. “Mwen rele Bicly,” [pronounced Bickley] he said as he worked hard to make his steps move in unison with ours upon the rocks. We could tell there was so much he wanted to say, but he didn’t have the words to communicate it. The only words he had were in Creole, and clearly we didn’t understand. We would smile at him, nod our heads, and give him our names. “Mwen…rele…Mickie,” “Mwen…rele…Tony,” we would say with stuttered Creole. His beaming smile showed that he was proud that we were trying to speak his language. Then he picked up a rock and said, “Woch!” [pronounced “wosh”] and we realized he was teaching us his language. We repeated, “Woch.” “Kabwit,” he said as he pointed to a goat. Then he said, “Pike” [pikey], and he touched a briar on a bush and moved it away from us so it wouldn’t stick us. He continued on with his language lesson, and when we were ready to head back to Hope Center, he hopped on his donkey and trotted away.

Nearly every afternoon, my walks holding Tony’s hand, included a small, dark hand in the other. The three of us would hold Creole class as we walked. His bright smile would light up my heart. I knew deep down that there was something very special about this little boy. He was so helpful and kind and smart! We didn’t know it at the time, but little Bicly was working his way into another heart in our home….Jacob’s. Although Bicly was only two years younger than our son Jacob, because of his size, he seemed like a child, but somehow he connected with Jacob, and they had become good friends at a time when Jacob needed a good friend.

I’ll never forget the first time we let Bicly spend the night at our house with Jacob. There was a bunk bed in Jacob’s bedroom and Bicly wanted to sleep on the top! I told Tony that I had a feeling that he was going to break the light bulb that was coming out of the wall just above the bed. Within seconds of climbing up, he began to squeal and jump on his knees, and, “Crack!” he broke the bulb. At this point, I realized our little Bicly was also predictable. 🙂

After a while, we had met another young boy in our village by the name of Johnny. He was a little charmer with “street smarts.” He would charm teams into giving him almost anything, and every team that came along, he would steal their hearts and tennis shoes, and soccer balls and sunglasses and…. well, you get the picture. We decided to ask Johnny’s mother if we could give him a little part-time job after school where he would do little odd jobs to earn money so he could buy the things he wanted and needed instead of begging. She said she was fine with that, and speaking of school….. She proceeded to tell us that he was three years behind in school and if we could go with her to talk to his principal. We went with her to the school and helped her get caught up on his tuition. After that, we informed Jacob that Johnny would be coming every day after school to work. Jacob said, “Well, if you are going to give Johnny a job, you need to give Bicly one too!” We decided that was a good idea because they could help one another. We thought perhaps Bicly could even help Johnny with his school! The next day, they both showed up early to work with big smiles on their faces. Little did we know, their first day of work at Hope Center was preceded by disciplinary action at school for getting in a fight. They had been sent home, but instead they came to work. They clearly didn’t like one another, but they agreed to put that aside for the sake of the “bon dolla” [American dollar] they would get later. They worked eagerly every afternoon planting trees and flowers around Hope Center. They took out the trash and burned it in a burn pile each afternoon too. It was hard work, but they were excited to do it. They were becoming not just friends but brothers. Tony helped them learn to save their money by keeping it in a box in our bedroom. Bicly’s would fill quickly and Johnny’s would empty quickly. They eventually saved enough to buy used bicycles in town, but they were clearly robbed by the vendor because the bicycles fell apart quickly. It was another lesson learned…

In time, many, many teams fell in love with them as we had. They would not only help teams, but they would listen to their language and learn words that helped them communicate. In no time, they began to speak English with us and with teams as they worked alongside many Americans and stole their hearts. We decided to see if some of the Americans would like to chip in to buy them new bikes. Within minutes of asking, two brand new bicycles were ordered and shipped to Haiti. The day we gave those boys their bicycles was probably the best day of their lives.

Two years passed, the boys grew, and more and more teams fell in love with them. Tony and I fell in love with them even more and had come to see them both as our very own sons. Our own boys had come to think of them as brothers, and our whole But God Ministries family had accepted them into the BGM family. Someone asked us once, “Do you think you could take them to America with you sometime?” My heart leaped at the idea! Oh how I would love to share our home country and friends and family with these boys! We decided to run with the idea. We started a fundraising campaign to get them to the US, and in no time we were able to get them both passports and visas! We just needed to raise a bit more to pay for their flights. We were so excited!! Our hearts would soon be broken, however, as we realized that it was not a good idea for two minor, Haitian boys to travel with missionaries of a big, growing mission organization to the US. The BGM board hated more than anything to break the news to us, but they could not allow us to fundraise to take the boys to the states. It was too risky to the organization and to us personally. The night we broke the news to the boys was devastating. We all cried together and searched desperately for strength and understanding to accept it in our minds and hearts. The boys faced great shame and disappointment at school and in the village as they had to find a way to explain that the good news they had shared with such excitement was not going to happen. We promised them that one day God would make a way…

Then two years later it happened!! The two families that sponsored them in school, the Anthony’s and the Hill’s, went to the same church and were on the same mission team preparing to come to Haiti. One evening while Tony and I were in the states, we met them for dinner and explained how we had not given up hope that the boys would get to come to the US. WE just couldn’t do it ourselves, but maybe THEY could! The families both embraced the idea immediately and we began to make plans. Their GoFundMe account was started, and in no time, funds began to pour in to help Johnny and Bicly come to the states. On our end, we would provide pictures & video updates for the page and social media; we worked on renewing their temporary visas, and we gathered all the paperwork to make it happen. Because there were plenty of funds, we decided it would be best to have their parents sign over temporary guardianship to our translator Vladimir for the trip and he would go along with them to help maneuver their way through immigration and help translate for them. All plans proceeded smoothly. The team came to Hope Center that summer and the boys left with them when they returned to the states. For two weeks they sent fun stories and photos of their adventures. Their mamas and siblings would come over to FaceTime with the boys from their host homes. It was an experience of a lifetime!

When the boys returned to Haiti, I could tell their American experience affected them in two different ways. Their relationship had grown closer, but at the same time it grew in two different directions. Johnny quickly returned to his hard-working schedule of planting, cleaning, raising chickens, building things, etc., but Bicly had become pensive and quiet. One day he sat down on the couch beside me and said, “Mom, I am really sad and I don’t know why.” He explained that although going to the US was fun and he saw many cool things, returning to Haiti from the states had made him sad for his country. He saw the potential and growth a united nation could have, but he didn’t see how his country could rise up to that same potential, and it created a sadness that he just couldn’t shake. We talked about it, and I explained that the key to helping a nation of people grow was with its leadership. His wheels began to turn in his head, and soon he realized that he wanted to turn his experience of visiting the US into something that would eventually help his county. He vowed to become one of those leaders that truly HELPS his people rise up to their potential. He really didn’t know how that would happen, but he would be committed to doing all he could to be a good leader.

Over the next year, several Americans began bringing up the idea of Bicly going to the US to attend school. They recognized his potential and wanted to help in some way. We explored many options, but nothing seemed to work out. It was clear that we were on the path God had designed for Bicly from the beginning, but we just had to trust God to lead us to the right time and opportunity to see it happen. We waited patiently and trusted God would lead. Finally, after several hopeful potential opportunities sparked our vision, God revealed the perfect fit.

Tony and I were in the states when a new team from McLaurin Heights Baptist Church in Pearl, MS, came to Hope Center to serve. Although this team had never been to Haiti to serve with us before, many of them had been on the journey with us from the very beginning when I first announced to my colleagues at Pearl High School that I was leaving PHS to become a missionary in Haiti! Their team leaders, Brad and Beth Hayes, had known us for a long time and had watched our mission grow over the years through social media. They were so excited to get the opportunity to actually come here and serve! Little did they know, God would put an idea into their hearts that would interweave with our vision for the future God had for Bicly, and He would seal that plan through a relationship between Bicly and their son Dillon, just like He had done through Bicly and our son Jacob. Bicly and Dillon immediately hit it off.

After the team left Haiti and returned to Pearl, God began to speak to Beth’s heart that she might have something to do with Bicly’s plan to go to the US for school. She shared that idea with me, and it all became crystal clear to me. Before I moved to Haiti, I taught at Pearl High School for seven years. My colleagues there were not just fellow teachers and administrators, but they were family. The principal at the time was Ray Morgigno, and he hesitantly but graciously accepted my news that I would not be renewing my contract that next year. He said, “I understand, and I want you to know that I am going to put this contract in my drawer. If all of this doesn’t work out, your contract is still here for you.” That touched my heart. It was my first experience of telling family goodbye and it was really hard. All of it sounded so crazy at the time, but now, six years later, it’s beginning to come full circle.

This week, Dr. Ray Morgigno, now Superintendent of Pearl Public Schools, is writing a letter accepting Bicly as a student at Pearl High School!! The school I loved so dearly as a teacher for seven years, and Tony’s alma mater, is now accepting our Haitian son Bicly as a student and welcoming him into the Pearl Pirate family! I am overjoyed and overwhelmed that this is actually happening! At the same time, I am ashamed to admit that I am cautious too. There have been so many times when we got our hopes up that something like this was going to work out, but it didn’t and the disappointment cut so deep. But this time, it feels different. I can see the beautiful irony in it all and I realize that my Heavenly Father planned this union long before we ever even came to Haiti. It was in his plan when he placed me at Pearl High School. It was in His plan when He moved us to Haiti. It was in His plan when He brought a little boy on a donkey to a hill to be our first Creole teacher. It was in His plan when He bloomed a friendship between Bicly and Jacob. And it was in His plan when He bloomed a friendship between Bicly and Dillon. It is becoming real now.

Dr. Brad Hayes and his wife Beth are currently writing some letters themselves. They are writing letters to the US Embassy explaining that they are accepting the responsibility of taking Bicly in and being his host family as he enters school in the US at Pearl High School. I am overwhelmed to think of what a huge step they are taking for a young man they have only met once. I do know what it feels like, however, as a mother, to see a special bond form between her son and this young Haitian boy named Bicly, and it is a blessing beyond words. There are many others joining in on the efforts now, including our dear friends Dale and Kent Banks, who have known Bicly almost as long as we have and who believe in his desire to get an American education so that he can return to his country to become a leader among his people. We are all working on the various facets of the plan, and I am trusting our God to move us along as we continue to seek direction from Him.

Beth will be using this story (a condensed version of course) and pictures to create a GoFundMe account to raise money to help them make this happen. We will have to renew Bicly’s passport, apply for his visa appointment, register him with SEVIS, and book his flight to Mississippi within the next few months. These things will be very expensive, but we know that God will move in people’s hearts and provide the funding to do so. Once Beth gets this account set up, I will share it on my Facebook page and you can check it out and get involved if God so moves.

I cannot wait to share the rest of this story one day! God is going to raise up a leader in Bicly in his community and maybe even his nation. He is ready for the challenge and knows that he has a huge family of both Haitians and Americans who will be praying for him as he continues on this journey. Please be praying for him as well as us and the Hayes family as we seek to honor the Lord and accept the call to be used in Bicly’s future. It will be another beautiful story to tell of God’s love, provision, and vision for this village and for Haiti. I am super-excited!! To God be the GLORY!!